Inexpensive kitchen island from Ikea Akurum

Danielle fits in a kitchen island with some handy hacking.

“When we bought our home 6 months ago the kitchen was a total mess without much storage or work space.

I love to cook so this just wasn’t going to work for us. The budget was tight so we obviously thought: Ikea! We couldn’t really afford to replace all of the cabinets in the kitchen so we went with the Akurum cabinets with the most inexpensive Arlig finish. We purchased 2 base cabinets and one upper for the shallow depth (to create a niche where my wife could watch me cook) and two tall cabinet units to flank the refrigerator. We painted the existing cabinets to match in white and with the money we saved were able to get granite countertops and a new floor installed.

We added white wainscotting to the back end of the unit from Menards and some corner trim to finish the whole thing. I just used some penny nails around the exterior of the bead board molding, just like the instructions say in so many other Ikea projects. 5-10 on the top, bottom, left and right holds them sturdy. I also ran them through the area where the stool goes just to finish it off (I couldn’t get enough light down there to take a decent picture, but trust me – its there). We recently added the corner pieces with some adhesive meant for installing crown molding, it worked great and they didn’t slide down the edges at all.

We’re thrilled with how it came out, we were able to tuck the microwave and toaster ovens into the large cabinets by the fridge to keep a less cluttered look and the seat at the island really comes in handy.”

Related Posts

The Author

Jules Yap "I am Jules, the engine behind IKEAHackers and the one who keeps this site up and running. My mission is to capture all the wonderful, inspiring, clever hacks and ideas for our much loved IKEA items".

Oh, I’m in love!! I’ve been trying to convince the hubby to do something similar in our kitchen. We have an almost exact layout. He didn’t think it would work. Your job just might convince him! It looks great!

Thanks everyone for the amazing feedback! It’s great hearing so many positive responses

The flooring is a laminate made by Tarket, their sea grass pattern. We really wanted to go with bamboo flooring but the price just didn’t work for us. Cost about $1.50 sq foot, it comes with the underlayment attached and I was able to install it myself. (We also installed it in our Ikea furnished, but not hacked renovated bedroom)

We installed the sink ourselves, the granite guys measured for the placement and size of the hole. As a suggestion, if you plan to replace both sink and countertop be sure to have the template for your new sink available when they measure so the new hole will be the right size. We had to dig through a mountain of DIY stuff to locate it when they came to measure.

I love the granite, but there have been a few casualties. I’ve butterfingered a coffee mug (it broke clean in half), or turn around with a glass container too fast and CRASH, you’re standing in a sea of glass We’re learning to be vewy, vewy careful!

The island is connected together by nuts and bolts on the interior of the cabinetry (4 to each side). The cabinets are Akurum, two base units (24″ depth) and one wall cabinet (12″ depth) at the center. The niche is where you see that stool, without it there wouldn’t be anyplace for your legs to fit.

Explore Archives

COPYRIGHT @ 2016 IKEAHACKERS.NET | IKEA is a registered trademark of Inter-IKEA Systems B.V. | IKEAhackers is a fan-run website and is NOT related to IKEA, IKEA.com or the IKEA Group. Any and all links to IKEA.com are presented for reader convenience only and do not imply IKEA's approval of this website and/or the modification of its products. IKEA and IKEAhackers.net are not liable for any product failure, injury or damage resulting from the application of hacks featured on this site.